Ethan Colbert
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
(TNS)
ST. CHARLES — Trouble for Jimmie Bates III started Monday morning when Bridgeton police reported finding him in a stolen truck. Within hours, he was in another — this one, investigators said, belonging to a St. Charles firefighter out on a call.
The 28-year-old was first arrested around 9:30 a.m. that day after officers spotted him in the driver’s seat of a truck that had been stolen from a Bridgeton business. Bates was taken to the St. Charles city jail on an outstanding warrant, said St. Charles City Police Detective Gage Gruenenfelder.
He was released shortly thereafter pending new charges, but Gruenenfelder said before Bates left the area trouble called to him again: Within about an hour he had walked less than 400 meters and found himself at the St. Charles City Firehouse 5 on Hawks Nest Drive.
“I don’t believe he was staking it out,” Gruenenfelder said. “I believe he was in the area of the fire department and observed that there wasn’t a fire truck there. He said he went there to get help and realized that nobody was there, so he just helped himself.”
That help, Gruenenfelder said, included stealing a St. Charles City handheld radio and several items belonging to firefighters: a GMC Sierra pickup truck, a firefighter’s jacket, AirPods, a backpack and a pair of Crocs.
Gruenenfelder said the fire station was hit while firefighters were out responding to a traffic crash.
The plainclothes detective told the Post-Dispatch he was called to investigate the firehouse burglary Monday. Instead of heading to the station, Gruenenfelder said he set out on a hunt for the suspect as the fire captain tracked his AirPods on his phone and gave the location to detectives in real-time.
The left earbud was pinging at Boone’s Colonial Inn, Gruenenfelder said. But a security guard there told him the GMC truck had left about 15 minutes ago.
The right earbud had pinged about 8 miles from its counterpart near the Northwest Airport Inn in St. Ann in the 3700 block of North Lindbergh.
Police reportedly found the stolen truck parked behind bushes and trees in the area in “an attempt to conceal it.” Gruenenfelder said they watched the car for about five minutes before they saw Bates walk to the truck and get in.
“I would like to say from the time I received the phone call to handcuffs being on Jimmie, it was about an hour and a half,” Gruenenfelder said. “Using AirPods — that was a first. It was a weird one.”
Bates was arrested shortly before midnight wearing the firefighter’s jacket and both AirPods. Bates later told Gruenenfelder that he had heard police talking about tracking him on the stolen St. Charles City handheld radio and knew they were headed his way.
Everything taken from the fire station was recovered undamaged inside the truck.
Bates told police that he knew it was wrong to take the items, and that he was only borrowing the truck, investigators said in court documents.
Bates, of St. Charles, was charged Tuesday with one count of second-degree burglary, one count of stealing a motor vehicle, and one count of stealing items valued at more than $750, related to the St. Charles thefts.
All the charges are felonies.
Police in Bridgeton are also expected to seek criminal charges against him for car theft and property damage.
Bates, who has previous convictions in Minnesota for aggravated robbery, fleeing police, and drug-related crimes, is being held at the St. Charles County Jail. St. Charles County
Associate Court Judge Dwayne Johnson has set Bates’ bond as $10,000 cash-only.
Bates has not hired an attorney to represent him in the St. Charles County case, according to electronic court records.
“There are not a lot of departments that will travel to St. Louis to find you and arrest you,” Gruenenfelder said. “We like to hold people accountable; we try to lock up everybody we can for the crimes that we have (reported).”
View life in St. Louis the week of Sept. 22, 2024
View life in St. Louis through the Post-Dispatch photographers’ lenses. Edited by Jenna Jones.
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